Working to end drug war injustice, the November Coalition is an education foundation. Thank you for visiting our website.

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Support an increase in federal earned, early release. Visit PopVox to learn more about the Second Chance Reauthorization Act of 2011, share your thoughts with the public and most importantly -- send a message to your Senators.

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Outraged by drug war injustice? Find contact information for your candidates & elected officials with a Zip Code at Vote-Smart.

Review current and past November Coalition and allied group projects below. You'll likely find something you could do, or be involved in where you live.

Projects!

Petition for Relief

Exile Nation Project

No New Jail Spokane

Looking for a project or activity to highlight drug war injustice? Perhaps you don't have a clue what November Coalition members are doing. Summaries of November Coalition projects, current projects of allied groups are featured here and invite your participation.

For almost ten years, November members have been gather support by circulating the Petition for Relief from Drug Injustice among their family, friends and associates. Some organizers gather dozens, sometimes hundreds of signatures of support at public events. A simple request to return a system of earned early release to the federal prison sentencing system. Today it makes more sense than ever. Visit this section of our website to sign online. You can also download a copy to print from home.

The Exile Nation Project is a documentary archive of interviews and testimonies from criminal offenders, family members, and experts revealing the far-ranging consequences of the War on Drugs and the American Criminal Justice System.

This captivating oral history puts a human face on the Americans subjugated by the US Government's 40 year, one trillion dollar social catastrophe: The War on Drugs, a failed policy underscored by fear, politics, racial prejudice and intolerance steeped in a public atmosphere of "out of sight, out of mind."

The Exile Nation Project is made possible by a generous grant from the Tedworth Charitable Trust and openDemocracy, in association with Exile Nation Media. All content is non-commercial and available for free distribution under a Creative Commons license.

has been saying ‘no’ to drug war laws and enforcers, militarization of our police, and the addiction to incarceration. We’ve pointed to the mountainous growth in US imprisonment rates of more than two decades due to punitive and racist drug laws passed under the twelve years of the Reagan+Bush administrations. Expanded during Clinton’s two terms, then through eight years of GW Bush, all warfare was taken to new heights, largely privatized.

Today we are the ones who must say, “No! No more drug war!” Demanding changes in criminal justice ends up including policing, imprisonment and sentencing. With Spokane members and friends we took all of these concerns and grew a grassroots, volunteer campaign urging rejection of proposed jail construction in our region.

The group has attracted new members and small donations while Commissioners and law enforcement have spent $1.6 million of public money on private contractors, prison siting specialists and sheriffs’ deputies whose job is to sell the jail to wary taxpayers. Claiming lack of funding, Spokane County cancelled rehabilitation and reentry services. Check out the No New Jail Coalition, and if you live in Spokane County in Washington State, please get to know us and be involved.

Barbara Fair - New Haven, CT

Barbara Fair, Connecticut

Denouncing Injustice

Blame Dad?

Police Brutality Rally

Target Injustice

Justice Rally

No Justice

Prison Slam

Barbara Fair has seen the injustice of the drug war touch her children's lives, her community and the state of Connecticut. Today she is a volunteer organizer in New Haven, within her state and sometimes afar. Babara's efforts to organize the citizens of New Haven against drug war injustice are carried in the local headlines in her community, and some her organizing work is featured in the documentary, Up the Ridge, a US Prison Story.

New Haven Denounces Drug War Injustice

May 2, 2009, New Haven, CT

Story by Barbara Fair -- Photos by Melinda Tuhus

The day was dreary in New Haven (CT), but it didn't discourage drug war reformers traveling from as far away as Indiana who gathered to educate a diverse audience about the injustices of the drug war. The drug policy conference was held inside Yale University's Dwight Hall Chapel on Saturday, May 2, 2009.

Ira Glasser, former National ACLU Director and now board president of Drug Policy Alliance, headed the lists of panelists/speakers. His speech portrayed the drug war as a revival of the Jim Crow Laws that prevailed in the South from the 1890s into 1950s, a set of laws that paved the way to renewed legal subjugation of African Americans in America. He went on to explain how Jim Crow repression succeeded slavery and how the drug war succeeded Jim Crow, both of which successfully removed African Americans from society.

He was followed by a panel of speakers that first included internationally respected drug policy activist, Cliff Thornton, executive director of Efficacy and two LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) spokesmen, Richard VanWickler, Superintendant of Corrections in New Hampshire and Joseph Brooks, retired police captain from Manchester, CT. Speaking next were Lorenzo Jones, executive director of A Better Way Foundation, and Connecticut State Senator Martin Looney, who introduced a bill to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana in the state legislature this session.

Kemba Smith, a former prisoner of the drug war, traveled from Indianapolis to share her story of being sentenced to 24 years as a first time drug law violator, even though prosecutors admitted that she never used, held or sold drugs. She was charged for crimes her former boyfriend committed. Her sentence was commuted in 2000 by President Bill Clinton after serving nearly seven years in prison. Since release she has traveled the country telling her story, attended law school, and plans to marry soon. Her speech was followed by words from a group of local activists including criminal defense attorneys Michael Jefferson and Norm Pattis, Youth mentors' Officer Shafiq Abdussabar and Shelton Tucker, and a Youth Rights Media alumnus, Matt Mitchell.

It was a gathering of some of the most committed leaders in the movement to end the US War on Drugs which began four decades ago under Richard Nixon's administration and accelerated rapidly in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan's reign. In early 1970s there were 1.4 million people addicted to drugs. In 2009, forty years later, there are 1.4 million people addicted to drugs; prohibited drugs are cheaper, more accessible and purer than 40 years ago, motivating activists to challenge all validity of the war on drugs. Reliable research now reports that 1.5 million Americans are arrested every year for drug law offenses, and 75% of those arrests are for simple possession of marijuana.

The war on drugs is the main feeder to an exploding prison system that has become one of the fastest growing industries in this country. America incarcerates more of its citizens than anywhere else in the world. No proportion of the US prison population has grown faster than African Americans. The greatest racial disparity is seen nationally among men ages 25-29 where Whites are incarcerated at the rate of 1,685 per 100,000, Latinos at 3,192 per 100,000 and African Americans an astounding 11,695 per 100,000. Today, there are 7 million Americans incarcerated, on parole or probation.

To cap the afternoon, a film -- The American Drug War: The Last White Hope -- was shown, captivating the audience with revelations of US involvement in supplying cocaine to the streets of urban America where eventually the crack epidemic took hold and devastated the lives of millions of Americans. The film depicted congressional hearings held in Washington DC in which former CIA and DEA agents and former presidents were questioned about their involvement in supplying the neighborhoods of Los Angeles with cocaine and then arresting the people who sold and used it.

The drug policy conference was hosted by People Against Injustice, a New Haven based grassroots organization seeking criminal justice and prison reform. Sponsors were Yale SLAM, Yale Students for Sensible Drug Policy, and November Coalition.

Barbara Fair joins local leaders and activists at hearing

Blame The Dads? Or The Drug War?

Those were two of the targets as black leaders and activists filled a City Hall hearing to address ongoing gun violence.

Eleven of 13 murders in New Haven this year had black male victims, all shot to death. Crime is down citywide, while both fatal and non-fatal shootings have spiked in the black community.

Some 150 people wrestled at a Board of Aldermen hearing Wednesday with the question of why that's happening. Here are four theories speakers advanced:

The War on Drugs Has Criminalized Young Black People

"Given the nexus between gun violence and the illegal drug trade," moderator Jefferson asked, "should our community at the very least begin a serious discussion about the legalization of drugs?"He directed the question to Barbara Fair, a community activist around criminal justice issues, who had a ready answer.

Fair (pictured) said the drug war has been going on for 40 years -- and drugs are more available, cheaper and more potent than ever. She argued that the black community has been targeted for prosecution. She cited surveys showing about equal drug use between blacks and whites, even though proportionately far more blacks get locked up for drug crimes.

"We should be having a conversation about ending the drug war altogether," Fair said. "And let's give resources to the people who are strung out on drugs and need help, let's get them the help. Instead of investing in prisons for people using drugs, let's invest in treatment centers."

Clergy & Elected Officials Aren't Doing Their Jobs

"How in the world can we expect the community to come together at the bottom level if we as leadership can not even unify together?" thundered Pastor John Lewis of Life-Centered Ministries on Whalley Avenue.

"Our government -- and that includes the mayor and the Board of Aldermen -- have failed to recognize the problem that has caused the gun violence, that has caused the drop outs of our kids, that has caused the despair in our neighborhoods," said former Mayor John Daniels (pictured). "And that is poverty."

At that, Michael Jefferson (pictured), the event's moderator, interjected, "Mayor Daniels, with all due respect, what was your response to the violence that plagued our communities when you served two terms in City Hall?"

The Black Community Has Not Organized to Demand that Politicians Do Their Jobs

State Rep. Gary Holder-Winfield (pictured) returned over and over to the idea that unless the black community organizes for political power, it will be ignored.

"If you choose not to organize," he said, "you might as well go home. That's just the honest truth. What we need to do is have people creating policy who understand what they're dealing with, and most people who are creating policy have not been in these communities.They have not studied these issues," he said, to applause.

His view was seconded during the audience participation part of the meeting by Westville activists Lashell Rountree. She pointed out the low voting percentages in black neighborhoods in the last election (in which she ran unsuccessfully for alderwoman).

"Keep staying home," she advised, if you don't want to see things change for the better.Black Fathers Are MIA

Police Officer Shafiq Abdussabur (pictured) said the community needs to look to itself -- and especially to the absent fathers. He has run programs for at-risk teens for the past decade.

"Without an active father in the lives of a child -- that is more impacting than anything. The father that is there, the father that is talking to that kid, the father who's spending time with that child" could make a huge difference, Abdussabur said. "We have to become surrogate fathers. The fathers got to get on their game. I don't care if he's in jail. I don't care if he's going to jail. Whatever you're doing, get in touch with your child, because that's where it begins."

The Brotherhood Leadership Summit helped organize the forum.

August 3

0, 2006 - New Haven Independent (CT)Speakers Target A Criminal Injustice Systemby Melinda TuhusRodney Lewis (pictured above) spent almost four years in a Connecticut prison, most of it in maximum security. At a packed public hearing on prison reform Tuesday night in the City's Hall's aldermanic chambers, he said, "Every time they put the cuffs and chains on me, I would lose a piece of myself, of my dignity." And that wasn't the worst part.

The forum was sponsored by People Against Injustice, a New Haven-based criminal justice reform group, and organized by Barbara Fair (pictured below, reading a letter from an inmate describing abysmal prison conditions). Fair is perhaps Connecticut's most passionate opponent of the war on drugs that puts thousands of mostly non-violent criminals behind bars in Connecticut alone. (The majority of the state's 18,000 prisoners are there for drug-related offenses.) Fair wanted a forum in New Haven because many local people are unable to get to all the public hearings on proposed legislation held in Hartford.

The first speaker was Rodney Lewis. He said he was picked up on the street for selling drugs and ended up in the "super max" facility at Northern Correctional Facility not because he was violent but because he was insubordinate. He described the isolation, the humiliations, the threats and harassment by the correction officers. He described an equal-opportunity racialized atmosphere, with white guards calling black prisoners "nigger" and black guards calling white prisoners "cracker."

The worst part, Lewis said, was feeling everyone else's pain as well as his own, knowing that people couldn't cope with their environment. Barbara Fair told the crowd that her own son, imprisoned on a drug charge, was put in maximum security six years ago when he was just 18 because he couldn't cope with prison and was having mental health problems. The conditions there just made things worse, she said. "That was the worst experience I ever went through in my life," said Fair. Her son was transferred out of super max after a few months.

Mary Johnson and Caroline Bridgman-Rees are activist octogenarians and members of People Against Injustice. "The stories are just unbelievable," Johnson said. "There are so many thousands of people right here in this state who have been affected, who shouldn't have been in prison in the first place, and the conditions are just horrible."

Later in the evening, a group of Yale students came in, eager to work on criminal justice issues. Several state legislators also attended, including state Rep. Toni Walker and state Sen. Toni Harp from New Haven. Alice Tracy came too; she's the mother of David Tracy, who committed suicide at age 20 a few years go while incarcerated at Wallens Ridge super-max prison in Virginia (one of almost 500 Connecticut prisoners who were sent out of state by then-Governor John Rowland to ease prison overcrowding).

Fair was ebullient after the hearing. She was encouraged by the number of people who attended and the range of experience represented ­ students, legislators, community activists and ex-prisoners. She said the immediate goal of People Against Injustice is to grow its membership and spread information to the public and lawmakers about the reality of Connecticut prisons and why they need to be reformed.

New Haven, CT Rally For Justiceby Melinda TuhusThese New Haveners (Dramese Fair, T.J. Tucker and Patrick Falconer, left to right, holding the banner) came to the State Capitol Wednesday to ask a question: What if so-called "drug-free zones" protected kids near schools rather than brand entire cities?

Their question was part of "Racial Justice Day."

Emcee, Barbara Fair, People Against Injustice

About 50 people from groups that included New Haven-based groups like People Against Injustice, Youth Rights Media and Fight the Hike rallied on the shady side of the Capitol and spoke animatedly with each other as they waited almost an hour for the event to begin, as organizers tried to round up supportive legislators to address the crowd. The lawmakers were having a busy day inside.Co-Emcee Barbara Fair of New Haven (pictured below) laid out the reason for the gathering -- to discuss legislation proposed by grassroots groups around the state and hold legislators accountable to their constituents in the community.

Issues included all those on the sign held by New Havener and former Connecticut House Speaker Irv Stolberg (pictured below), who was there on behalf of the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty. The connection with racial justice is that, according to a handout from the group, "Statistical reviews in Connecticut have found significant evidence that killers of white victims are more likely to be sentenced to death than killers of African American victims. African Americans are the victims in 44% of all Connecticut homicides, yet as of October 2006, 86% of the people on Connecticut's death row [of eight people] are there for killing white victims."

Former Connecticut House Speaker Irv Stolberg

Sally Joughin, from People Against Injustice, said her top priority is creation of a Commission on Prison Oversight to make the Department of Correction accountable for treatment of its 19,000 predominantly black and Latino inmates. The bill her group submitted required participation by various stakeholders, but in the Judiciary Committee it was transformed to create an advisory group appointed solely by the Commissioner of Corrections, with none of those groups of participants mandated to be included. Joughin said, "The commissioner can ask advice of anyone she wants to -- she doesn't need an legislation creating an advisory group for that."

The Alliance CT was promoting drug-free school zone reform that would reduce the zone (within which extra criminal penalties apply) from 1,500 to 200 feet around schools and enforce the restriction only during school hours.

The group also supports removing day care centers and public housing from coverage under the drug-free zone, because the law as currently constituted makes a drug-free zone of entire urban areas.

The proposal would shift resources from simple enforcement to treatment and education.

"Reforming school zone laws is about making these laws actually protect children instead of over-incarcerating urban residents," said a press release handed out at the event, adding that currently 50 percent of Connecticut's total male prison population comes from Hartford, Bridgeport and New Haven.

State Rep. Chris Caruso of Bridgeport was one of a few lawmakers who came out to praise the crowd for being pro-active and fighting for what they believed in.

State Rep. Marie Kirkley-Bey of Hartford highlighted the efforts to reform the drug-free zones and to raise the age at which juveniles are treated like adults in the criminal justice system from 16 to 18. She also thanked people for coming out, but said, "You're too late." Since the session is winding down and ends June 6 (although a special session will be called after that), she urged them to keep organizing and come back early in the legislative process next year.

After the rally, people went inside the Legislative Office Building to lobby their elected officials.

March 27, 2004

"There is no justice in the war on drugs," chanted protestors in a Connecticut courtroom one day last June. People Against Injustice, Critical Resistance, Yale SLAM, along with other community groups staged a protest inside and outside the New Haven Courthouse during a hearing for one of PAI's members, Shelton Tucker.

Like many Black and Latino youth arrested, in this case for possession of marijuana, Tucker insisted he was falsely accused -- no drugs were found on him -- and refused to plead guilty. And like most defendants in drug war cases, the judge threatened Tucker with a maximum sentence of eight years if a jury found him guilty. After several frustrating hearings, and with little hope for a fair trial, Tucker did what most accused do in these blackmail-type cases -- pled guilty.

Protestors joined Shelton as he stood before the judge and -- after Shelton was given a suspended sentence and probation -- rose up in the courtroom with black gags over their mouths. Shelton's mother, and a PAI member, displayed and carried the November Coalition's banner "There is no justice in the war on drugs" as the support group left the courthouse.

Outside the courthouse, the group spoke about the injustices that occur there on a daily basis, as spectators looked on. Cars honked their horns in support of the lively group, as they vowed to continue fighting for criminal justice and prison reform.

People Against Injustice activists Barbara Fair and Sally Joughin, along with other members and other community groups, organized and staged a Journey for Justice in New Haven in March of 2004. The Journey depicted the trail of injustices that occur every day in the city.

About 50 people gathered outside the New Haven Police Department on a hot, humid day holding signs with messages speaking of the 30-year-old, failed drug war in this country. The police station was the first of three stops. Second was the County Courthouse, and then on to the Jail where thousands are being held in crowded conditions due to excessive bail. Most of these detainees are in jail due to drug charges. In Connecticut over 65% of the nearly 20,000 prisoners have been convicted of nonviolent crimes.

The Journey march included members of PAI and other grassroots' organizations whose common mission is criminal justice and prison reform. A major concern of everyone is drug policy and enforcement reform. Others on this special Journey included family members of the confined, Yale University students, members of the International Socialist Organization, and other individual community activists.

Speeches were given at each site. Cars honked horns loudly in support of the marchers. Afterwards, everyone gathered at a local community center where youth came together in dialogue about their experiences with police harassment, illegal searches, racial profiling and police misconduct within their community.

Behind such honest sharing to end the day Journeyers went home aroused with the power of people united in righteous cause.

January 20, 2004 - New Haven Register (CT)

Crowd Slams Jammed Prisons

By Natalie Missakian, Register Staff

NEW HAVEN - The temperatures were frigid and protesters had to jockey for spots on a single snow-cleared path down the middle of the Elm Street courthouse steps.

But despite less-than-ideal conditions, about 50 people bearing candles and flashlights braved the cold to send a message to state lawmakers about prison overcrowding Monday night.

"I believe if Dr. Martin Luther King were here, he'd be fighting for this issue," said Shelton Tucker, an organizer of Monday's candlelight vigil, which coincided with the holiday celebrating the life of the slain civil rights leader.

The vigil was held to push for state legislation, tabled last session, to address prison overcrowding.

Lawmakers had considered changing the criminal justice system so that criminals arrested on technical violations of their parole or probation would be less likely to be sent to jail.

They also hoped to give judges more discretion when sentencing and weed out inmates with mental illness and substance abuse problems.

"Good legislation has been proposed again and again," said Barbara Fair, Tucker's mother and an organizer of People Against Injustice. "We are here to say: 'No more delays'."

The group also wants the state to halt the controversial practice of sending Connecticut inmates to prisons out of state.

"A lot of people who are incarcerated have families that live in poverty," said Tucker, who has three brothers incarcerated in Connecticut, including one who just returned to the state from a Virginia prison.

"It's hard for them, if not impossible, to see their loved ones."

Three years ago, the same group staged a Martin Luther King Jr. Day vigil outside the home of then-state Department of Correction Commissioner John Armstrong.

That rally called attention to the deaths of two Connecticut inmates while incarcerated at the Wallens Ridge correctional facility in Virginia.

Connecticut inmates have since been removed from Wallens Ridge, but are still being sent to other out-of-state prisons.

Regarding the May 25 editorial about Florida's reputation as the nation's pill pusher: Switzerland faced a similar problem in the early 1990s. Addicts and dealers had converged on Zurich and Bern because of their liberal drug policies.

The Swiss tourist image was being tarnished. Overdose deaths had spiked and AIDS was spreading. Zurich's response was twofold: First, they cracked down on dealers, and second, they initiated an "experiment" to expand the availability of opiate substitutes, even heroin.

It worked. The average age of registered addicts rose, an indication that kids are not becoming addicted, and the number of patients needing heroin stabilized at 1,300. Use of illegal drugs other than opiates either declined or stayed the same. In 2008 the Swiss people voted over 2-to-1 to make it a permanent part of their national health system. Florida is doing the right thing to crack down. Now we should increase the availability of legal methadone to drive pill mills out of business, permanently.Seattle Times (WA), Wed, 25 May 2011Copyright: 2011 The Seattle Times Company

SOMETHING TO SHOW

One hundred years ago, opium was the enemy and a bare handful of highly principled Americans persuaded the international community to restrict opium production.

They believed that no government should benefit from the opium business, as the British, Spanish and French had done in China, the Philippines and Vietnam, respectively.

They were tight on principle, but wrong on logic. They must have believed that if opium supply decreased by, say 25 percent, that addiction would also decrease by 25 percent.

But it does not. While many casual users quit because of price and fear of arrest -- addicts don't. They do whatever it takes to get cash for the higher price. They, not the casual users, fuel the wealth and violence of the illegal market.

Recent policy experiments in Europe indicate that if we had focused on the addiction ( rather than the drug ) we would have something to show for our 100-year effort.

John Chase, Palm Harbor, Fl.

Tampa Tribune, Sat, 21 May 2011TIP HAT TO SWISS

Regarding 'Fighting pill mills' ( Our Views, May 18 ): For the short run, we have no alternative. But for the long run we should consider other methods. The best example is a Swiss 'experiment' to offer heroin to hard-core addicts while greatly expanding methadone maintenance. It began is 1994 and is now known as HAT ( heroin assisted treatment ). In a 2008 referendum the Swiss people voted over 2 to 1 to make it a permanent part of their national health system.

While methadone is used for 95 percent of the addicts, heroin is available to the 5 percent for whom methadone is ineffective. It pays for itself in improved public health and safety, and enables addicts to hold jobs and pay taxes. The average age at registration is slowly rising, an indication that kids are not becoming addicted, and the number of patients needing heroin has stabilized at about 1,300. Use of drugs other than opiates has either declined or stayed the same. The key to success was to de-politicize the issue and involve both law enforcement and the medical community.

Re: "That Hippie Sacrament" ( May 11 ), I was born in 1934, so had little exposure to the hippie sacrament. But I do read history, and it confirms that marijuana prohibition began as a way to hold down hippies, not because marijuana is dangerous.

President Nixon's chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, wrote in his diary on April 28, 1969, that "[Nixon] emphasized that you have to face the fact that the whole problem [welfare] is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to ..."

Nixon signed the 1971 Controlled Substances Act, which included marijuana on its most restrictive "schedule." Nixon's motive was corroborated in 1995 by Nixon's other aide, John Ehrlichman, during an interview with Dan Baum, author of Smoke and Mirrors, when he told Baum,

"Look, we understood we couldn't make it illegal to be young or poor or black in the United States, but we could criminalize their common pleasure. We understood that drugs were not the health problem we were making them out to be, but it was such a perfect issue for the Nixon White House that we couldn't resist it."

Florida is considering a pharmaceutical data­base to find and prosecute pill mill operators. They flourish here because many other states find and prosecute pill mill operators.

So if the United States stamped out all pill mills, would opiate addicts finally be forced to 'get clean'? Hardly. It would just drive suppliers to Mexico, giving the cartels an additional product to sell to Americans.

A better solution would be to treat opiate addiction like the sickness it is. Switzerland has been doing that since 1994, and in 2008 voted overwhelmingly to make the policy permanent. It pays for itself in better public health and reduced crime.

Officially it is called 'heroin assisted treatment,' available to addicts willing to sign up with the state. The Swiss have few pill mills because there is little demand for illegal pills. We should try it.

First, thanks for inviting me here today. My credentials.... I am a retired engineer, still married to the grandmother of my 8 grandchildren. My interest in the drug war began just after I went online ten years ago. I remembered that in the mid 90s my brother told me Milton Friedman was calling the drug war "prohibition". I knew what that was, so I started digging, and the more I dug the less I liked it.

Just 10 years ago I connected with Nora Callahan, the founder of the November Coalition. She has me listed as one of her "advisors'. I am not an organizer, but I do write a lot of letters. I brought some November literature with me -- it's the Coalition's Razor Wire. These are past issues; the latest is online. The mission of TNC is to end the injustices of the drug war. Mostly federal cases, but sometimes State cases. More later on that.

Today is my 75th birthday. I was born exactly 40 days after National Prohibition ended, and about 3 years before the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, the law that effectively outlawed marijuana. So in my first 3 years of life I could drink AND smoke legally, but I was too young to take advantage of it.

To paraphrase Will Rogers, "Prohibition is bad, but better than no liquor at all"

Until Mason Tvert's SAFER initiative (Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation) won in Denver, I thought it was a waste of time to debate marijuana on its merits, because in the end both sides would have concluded that marijuana is not risk-free. Better, I thought, to start with the premise that no drug is risk free, then debate whether prohibition is the best way to manage that risk.

In principle, that's what the debate should be about. But sometimes "principle" just doesn't cut it.

Problem is, the public has been conditioned to believe that illegal drugs are all more dangerous than legal drugs, that anyone who believes that liberalizing antidrug law protects kids must also believe water flows uphill.

Denver's SAFER strategy reconditions public opinion by comparing pot to alcohol. Today more people smoke, or have friends who smoke, than in the past, so they have a real-time, first-person basis for comparison.

Good that Mason Tvert keeps pressing. I see that he's been here at UCF, making people think. Changing public opinion is like making a cow move over. Anyone who has milked a cow knows that you can't make a cow move over by pushing it over. You just lean on it, and bye and bye, the cow moves over. That's Mason.

How did we get into this mess? It began when the "Enlightenment" of the 18th/19th century reached the so-called New World.... the idea that government could enact laws to improve society. Child Labor Laws, for instance, began in England in 1832, then in the U.S. In 1916.

In 1920, the U.S. went a step further by their "noble experiment" to stamp out alcohol. 1920 was the year that women got the vote. Prohibitionists believed that National Prohibition would be assured because women knew the downside of alcohol. Women were for prohibition at first, then turned against it when they compared it to life with legal alcohol. It had been only 10 years, so they remembered.

In 1930 the Women's Organization for National Prohibition Reform voted their resolution against National Prohibition. It was, they wrote, "..... wrong in principle, ..... equally disastrous in consequences in the hypocrisy, the corruption, the tragic loss of life and the appalling increase of crime which have attended the abortive attempt to enforce it; in the shocking effect it has had upon the youth of the nation; in the impairment of constitutional guarantees of individual rights; in the weakening of the sense of solidarity between the citizen and the government which is the only sure basis of a country's strength."

In 1883, a Yale philosopher, William Graham Sumner, wrote an essay, entitled "The Forgotten Man." Sumner warned that well-intentioned social progressives often coerced unwitting average citizens into funding dubious social projects. He wrote: "As soon as Citizen A observes something which seems to him to be wrong, from which Citizen X is suffering, A talks it over with Citizen B, and A and B then propose to enact a law to remedy the evil and help Citizen X. Their law always proposes to determine . . . what A, B, and C shall do for X." But what about C? There was nothing wrong with A and B helping X. What was wrong was the law, and the indenturing of C to the cause. Citizen C was the forgotten man, the man who paid, the man who never is thought of." We call Citizen A a social liberal.

We ended National Prohibition not because we thought alcohol was good. We ended it because life got so bad that Citizen C began to speak up.

Today, Social Liberals are just called "Liberals". Classical Liberals, or what is left of them, are today's Libertarians. Today's "Conservatives" began with Nixon's "southern strategy", that began in 1968, and drew from both groups. So, today, virtually all Republicans and Democrats originated in those two groups.

Neither group had a corner on good public policy. Classical Liberals turned a blind eye to Slavery, the Jim Crow laws and the financial excesses of the Roaring 20s. Social Liberals brought us National Prohibition and Constitution-bending legislation used to prosecute today's drug war. Both the Republicans and the Democrats are to blame. The drug war has failed so badly that Citizen C, the forgotten man, is speaking up.

That brings us back to marijuana. How, exactly, DID we get in this fix? It started in the House of Representatives very late on the afternoon of June 10th 1937... The year "Reefer Madness" was released.

Let me quote part of the transcript....... This exchange was among four of our honorable politicians:

Mr. DOUGHTON [Robert L. Doughton (D-NC), Chairman of Ways and Means]. "I ask unanimous consent for the present consideration of the bill [H.R. 6906] to impose an occupational excise tax upon certain dealers in marihuana, to impose a transfer tax upon certain dealings in marihuana, and to safeguard the revenue therefrom by registry and recording."

The Clerk read the title of the bill.

Mr. SNELL. [Rep. Bertrand H. Snell(R-NY)]. "Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, and notwithstanding the fact that my friend, Reed, is in favor of it, is this a matter we should bring up at this late hour of the afternoon? I do not know anything about the bill. It may be all right and it may be that everyone is for it, but as a general principle, I am against bringing up any important legislation, and I suppose this is important, since it comes from the Ways and Means Committee, at this late hour of the day."

Mr. RAYBURN [Sam Rayburn(D-TX), later to become Speaker himself]. "Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I may say that the gentleman from North Carolina has stated to me that this bill has a unanimous report from the committee and that there is no controversy about it."

Mr. SNELL. "What is the bill?"

Mr. RAYBURN. "It has something to do with something that is called marihuana. I believe it is a narcotic of some kind."

Mr. VINSON. [Fred M. Vinson (D-KY), later a Supreme Court Justice] "Marihuana is the same as hashish."

Mr. SNELL. "Mr. Speaker, I am not going to object but I think it is wrong to consider legislation of this character at this time of night".

Later, when the bill returned, very slightly amended, from the Senate, the only question asked was whether the AMA agreed with the bill. Mr. Vinson said not only did the AMA did not object (In fact their committee witness had dissented strenuously), he also claimed that the bill had AMA support.

FDR signed the bill on August 3rd. After that there was a 13 year lull in enforcement. To this day it is not clear why the bill was pushed so hard to become law, then barely enforced. Conspiracy buffs think they know, but no one knows for sure. I have a book whose chapter 9 called "The Marijuana Recession 1938-1951".

Some states, some communities have a tradition of liberalism... But not yet in Florida.

Each election year there is another state, or county or city or community voting to liberalize marijuana. Some vote for medical marijuana, some that marijuana enforcement will be a low priority; a few vote to decriminalize, that is to make possession like a traffic ticket. (That's the usual meaning of "decriminalize": to make adult possession of a small quantity less than a felony. This meaning is often misunderstood, sometimes interpreted to mean legalization ) . Both MI and MA voted Nov 4th for significant changes to marijuana policy.

MI's is well-written law for MMJ. It includes explicit protection for the caregiver and the doctor, missing from California's Prop215, passed in 1996. The law is now being put into regulations by the Michigan Department of Community Health (MDCH) and the MI State Police. From what I read it is being done constructively.

My only connection with MI has been reading the history of National Prohibition, that the Detroit River was a major entry route for good liquor from the UK, particularly after 1928, when the Coast Guard blockaded "Rum Row".... Florida's lower East Coast and the Jersey Shore.

At the federal level, there is support for "rescheduling" from its present Schedule A to B, where it would be legal -- at the federal level -- for doctors to prescribe it. This is essentially what the Michigan law does for Michigan.

No question that it is the compassionate thing to do, but it will not scale back the war on pot, not if the 1920s is an indicator. Medicinal alcohol was freely available throughout National Prohibition, but it didn't reduce the lawlessness and violence of the 1920s. And it won't help wind down the drug war, other than to help persuade the public that marijuana is not scary. But even if all the states, and the feds, rescheduled marijuana so it could be prescribed by doctors, the societal damage will continue. Doctors will be arrested for prescribing "too much" marijuana. I know how that works first-hand.

I was involved in the case of Richard Paey, the sick man who was finally granted a full pardon by the FL Clemency Board in September 2007. The same FL prosecutor hounded Richard through 7 years and 3 trials and finally got him. Paey was sentenced to the 25 year "mandatory minimum" required by the FL Trafficking statute. No parole possible; the only hope was Gov. Crist and the FL Clemency Board. It's a long story... Ten years, total. I'm going to take a few minutes to tell it because it is exactly what can happen with medical marijuana if it becomes the law of the land.

I picked up the story halfway through. In August 2002, I happened to read in the St Pete Times that Richard was to be sentenced to 25 years, so I drove to the West Pasco County Courthouse. I watched Paey's attorney persuade the judge to throw out the jury conviction on a technicality. That was the 2nd trial.

Paey had been in a traffic accident in 1985 in NJ that hurt his back, then back surgery that made it worse. It left him in chronic pain. His NJ doc was prescribing painkillers. Then the Paey family moved to Florida, to Hudson, in Pasco County. Richard couldn't find a doctor who'd take him on, so his NJ doc mailed him prescriptions. When the local sheriff discovered that Richard was using a lot of pills he went to NJ with a FL DEA agent and told the doc that Richard was selling the pills.... They threatened the doc with 25 years and the doc abandoned Richard to the street..... actually not literally to the street. Richard was in bed by then, with MS. (A person living with undertreated chronic pain seems to be more susceptible to such diseases as MS.)

So Richard stayed at home and Xeroxed the prescriptions his doc had been mailing, and his wife drove him around to have them filled. The local sheriff staked out the Paey house to see who Richard was selling his pills to. In almost 3 months, no one came to the house, but they'd invested so much effort to get Paey that they arrested him anyhow. A SWAT team broke in, masked, guns drawn, etc. Paey was in bed saying "call my doctor, call my doctor", but they didn't do that. His wife was on the floor in handcuffs, three young children in the home. Fortunately, Richard is a man of principle, and his wife had a good job as an optometrist. So they fought the system, for 10 years total. It meant mortgaging their house and digging into Linda's 401k.

The November Coalition's mission is to stop the injustice of the drug war. It is aimed chiefly at the feds -- the DEA -- but makes exceptions in certain State cases. The Paey case was one of those. Nora Callahan, the founder of TNC, printed over 4000 postcards featuring one of the cartoons Richard drew in Prison for people to mail to Governor Jeb Bush. Those cartoons are still on the November website. This went on for years. Opinion pieces in the SP Times, NY Times, Tampa Tribune, International Herald Tribune. Reported on 20/20, Nightline, finally on 60 Minutes. He'd still be in prison but for the national -- and international -- reporting. And for that I credit mostly the Pain Relief Network, a nonprofit started by Siobhan Reynolds, woman whose husband's doc was threatened by the DEA because he was prescribing "too much" painkiller to her husband. It made her very angry. My contribution was introducing those two women. Linda Paey and Siobhan Reynolds.

So, why did I take the time to tell that long story? Two reasons. First to emphasise the enormous amount of work -- and good luck -- it takes today in the U.S. to remedy a single, exceptionally egregious injustice. There are many 1000s almost as bad that fly beneath the radar. Second, even if marijuana is rescheduled from Sched A to Sched B, patients will run the same risk as Richard Paey. The DEA is playing doctor and causing a lot of damage. MMJ won't change that.

Massachusetts new law, their "Question 2", passed on November 4th with 65% of the vote. It removes the criminal penalty for adult possession of less than an ounce of marijuana. Police departments in MA are trying to figure out how to live with it. They will still be free to go after bigger fish, of course, but big fish are more dangerous than smokers, and they know it.

At the federal level, Barney Frank (D-MA) introduced a bill in April 2008 that would have removed federal criminal penalties for possession of up to 100 grams of marijuana and the not-for-profit transfer of up to one ounce (28.3 grams) of marijuana. That bill died in committee. Even during National Prohibition, there was no limit on how much alcohol a person could possess for personal use. But I think Barney Frank can take major credit for educating MA citizens to vote 65-35 for their Question 2 to liberalize marijuana under state law.

I am one of the few drug policy reform activists who thinks decriminalization will backfire because it will do nothing to take profit out of the illegal trade. On the contrary, it will INCREASE the profit. The law of supply and demand says that price will rise if demand increases or supply decreases. This was obvious in 1928 when the then-Drug Czar boasted that she'd driven the price of a case of good liquor in Miami from $35 to $125 by blockading Florida's lower East Coast. Bootleggers then cut their liquor with wood alcohol to meet demand. But that wasn't the worst. The added profit attracted more violent men to the trade. Al Capone's St. Valentine's Day massacre came in 1929, and the feds responded by increasing the penalties against the bootleggers. If they had arrested drinkers instead of bootleggers, demand would have decreased. But drinking was not against the law. The 1920s was a time of decriminalized alcohol, although we didn't call it that.

The only way to stop the societal damage being done by the drug war is to take out the profit, and there is only one way to do that. Legalize everything. If that's not politically possible, legalize what can be legalized..... Marijuana. Put it on the same legal plane as beer and wine. Legal marijuana would be a cash cow for tax revenue.

Coming back to Denver for a minute, the latest news -- in the Denver Post -- is that the pot fines of Federal Heights -- that's a suburb of Denver -- are being reduced because people can't pay them in these tough economic times, and many pot smokers are near the bottom of the ladder. I am waiting for Florida to INcrease the fines to fill the budget shortfall because pot smokers don't deserve any better.

Remember what Lili Tomlin said.... something like "No matter how cynical I get I just can't keep up".

My recommendation: Don't "legalize" anything. Just get the feds out. Stop seducing local politicians with federal money to "fight drugs". Let the states handle it. We did it in 1933 and it has worked for 75 yrs.

Marijuana is gaining acceptance, so start with that, then decide if it should be done for other drugs.

There is a fallback position. Don't try to stamp out ALL use. Just stamp out PROBLEM use, the way we do with alcohol. We have severe penalties for DUI offenses. If we could identify problem use before the fact, that would be best of all. The vast majority of drug use is casual use, not problem use, and casual users are no problem to society, by definition. When we read that that drug prevalence has gone down it means nothing because the decrease is virtually all in casual use. If beer were to be illegal again, I'd probably stop, but it would not help society. Problem users will get their drug, legal or not.

Finally, thanks for letting me go first. It's only 10 PM. I can cut out now and drive back to Pinellas County.

October 2007 - Civil Liberties In Pinellas (FL)What Is A "Snitch"? It Depends On Whom You AskBy John Chase

Snitching is in the news lately, widely misunderstood. The traditional meaning, obvious in the 1999 PBS Frontline special "Snitch", is a person under the thumb of prosecutors who testifies against others in drug conspiracy cases, in the hope of leniency. As the drug war escalated, a "stop snitchin" movement evolved, and now "snitch" is being spun by unknown parties to say the minority community is becoming afraid to report/testify on crime in general.

The spin notched upward on April 22nd with Anderson Cooper's CBS 60 Minutes segment "Stop Snitchin". On the unspun side is Edrea Davis, author of SnitchCraft.(1) Ms. Davis also wrote "Propaganda, Pimping Or Sloppy Journalism?" about the 60 Minutes article, excerpts as follows:(2)

".... For the past few months mainstream media has hyped the "Stop Snitchin" slogan, giving it a life-and definition-of its own. A story on CBS News' 60 Minutes presented a one-dimensional view of snitching that appears to be part of an ongoing propaganda campaign designed to hold hip-hop culture accountable for the dysfunctional criminal justice system, and divert the public's attention from the real problems in America.

"In the black community it is commonly understood that a snitch is a crafty criminal who negotiates a deal for himself by telling on others. Since the days of slavery, providing information to authorities to gain favor has been viewed negatively.

"I was able to find the meaning of snitching in less than ten clicks of my mouse, so I think it's safe to assume that 60 Minutes, a national news program with a budget and research staff, is aware of the nature and definition of snitching and had no interest in being fair and accurate.

"But, according to the 60 Minutes story, witnesses and concerned citizens are now considered snitches. The report indicated that people of all ages in the black community, even children, are abiding by this so-called code-of-silence out of fear of retaliation.

"While it is true that blacks and other minorities have a history of strained relationships with the police, concerned citizens routinely complain about crack houses, slow response times and a lack of police patrols in inner-city neighborhoods. Black people also serve as witnesses and jurors.

"Since I'm from the "P-Funk" era, I went to allhiphop.com, thuglifearmy.com and eurweb.com to see what the hip-hop generation had to say. Amazingly, about 85% of the posts I read supported the classic definition of snitching. I listened to Chamillionaire's song "No Snitchin." The rapper rhymes about a criminal who "was looking at 30 but only did 10." The song goes on: "streets know the deals you made with the pen."

"A few clicks later I was on sohh.com watching an interview with rapper, actor and one of the pioneers of hip-hop, Ice-T. He said, "Snitching is not telling on somebody doing something wrong in the 'hood. It's when you and your partner are involved in a crime and get caught and you tell on your partner. That's snitching."

"A quick look at pertinent information absent from the story is further evidence that it was propaganda. For instance, 60 Minutes neglected to mention that there was honor among thieves long before hip-hop. Dishonest elected officials, corporate executives, and even the "Boys in Blue" have adhered to a don't snitch mantra over the years.

"How can any responsible journalist do a story on how black people relate to the police without mentioning the pandemic of police brutality and misconduct cases across the country? With the international media attention surrounding the snitch involved in the police killing of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston, how can they produce a story on snitching without mentioning problems related to dishonest snitches?..."

"Stop snitchin'" begs for an explanation of how it came to be. Anyone who watched the Frontline special "Snitch" knows.(3) It began with legislation enacted just before the 1986 election when Democrats tried to out-tough Republicans, and again just before the 1988 election. The 1986 law established mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses, except that the mandatories could be waived if the defendant provided "substantial assistance" to the prosecution. The prisons began to fill. But it was drug conspiracy law, added in 1988, that did the work. Drug Conspiracy law allows conviction with no evidence except the word of an informant. It's been 20 years.

After a number of high profile drug conspiracy cases were reported in the ten part series, "Win-at-all-Costs", by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in late 1998,(4) prosecutors began to focus on low level dealers and women, who both lacked the resources to resist. Drug prosecutions rely so often on "substantial assistance" that it rarely makes the news. The vast majority end in plea bargains even if the accused has resources to retain an attorney. Defendants are played off against each other, often with no interest in the truth. In cases of "diverted" pharmaceuticals, for example, patients are threatened, pressured to turn on their doctors, but it can work the other way.

Richard Paey, a Hudson pain patient sentenced to 25 years for "trafficking", told reporter [New York Times] John Tierney that prosecutors, "...said if you're willing to testify against your doctor it would go a long way to having these charges go away." According to Tierney, "Paey refused, and then found himself facing hostile testimony from the doctor, who said he had not authorized the contested prescriptions."(5)

Bernie McCabe, Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney, says his prosecutors rarely go to trial with just the word of a snitch because it is hard to win, but it's different if there are multiple snitches, as in the recent Michael Vick dog fighting case. When questioned about the impact of the "Stop Snitchin" movement, he said he wasn't aware of any. Cecelia Bareda of Sheriff Jim Coats' office agreed, andemphasized the importance of a strong relationship between citizens and police.

Reporting crime and testifying both depend on that good relationship, and some legal experts believe it is jeopardized by confidential informants. According to Alexandra Natapoff, a Loyola Law School professor, speaking to the panel at a House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on July 19th, "It's an historical problem in this country, it's not reducible to the problem of informing or snitching or "stop snitchin", but I would submit that the 20-year policy on the part of state, local and federal government of using confidential informants and sending criminals back into the community with some form of impunity and lenience, and turning a blind eye to their bad behavior, has increased the distrust between police and community," and it "..makes law enforcement less rigorous: police who rely heavily on informants are more likely to act on an uncorroborated tip from a suspected drug dealer. In other words, a neighborhood with many criminal informants in it is a more dangerous and insecure place to live."(6)

While many informants are simply naive drug buyers sent out after arrest to sell drugs to other naive buyers, a few excel at it. Denis DeVlaming, a local defense attorney, tells of a client whose forte while in prison was to try for a sentence reduction by getting bunked near prisoners on whom prosecutors needed information. The client was actually on Florida's witness list for a time.

DeVlaming's experience tells him that rewarded testimony is inherently unreliable. The "Stop Snitchin" movement is a reaction to the drug war's system of paid informants and naïve snitches, and it now threatens to spread to reporting/testifying on other offenses.(7) As a remedy, John Conyers' House Judicial Committee will write federal legislation to rein in the use of such rewarded testimony. It remains to be seen whether Florida will follow the federal lead.

Good morning. Some of you may have heard the joke JFK told about the farmer who'd just planted his crop, how he told his neighbor, "I hope I break even this year because I really need the money." This is where we are with the drug war.

Before I get into my subject, let me tell you a little about me. I am like most of you: I've always believed that every citizen owes a debt to the society that brung 'em up. Back in the late 50s I served 3 years in the Navy - the peacetime Navy - and I have been paying taxes for almost 50 years. Never in trouble with the law. Always vote. Although registered as a Republican, according to my wife I am a civil libertarian.

My first recollection of discomfort with the drug war was in the middle 90s when my brother told me that Milton Friedman was calling it prohibition. Well, we all know about alcohol Prohibition. It caused more social damage than it prevented, and we gave up on it after 13 years. I came off the sidelines four years ago. Started from zero. Had to ask my grown son what it meant to take a hit off a joint. Now I am active in two reform organizations.

One of them is The November Coalition, the organization of the families of drug prisoners. I thought that was radical when I started into it, but I don't think it's so radical anymore. If you want to know more about it, there is a pamphlet on the table at the back of the room you can pick up.We have been trying real hard to defeat drugs since 1971. It is worldwide drug prohibition and it's not working. If it were, I wouldn't be talking to you today.

One country is making headway against drugs - by not enforcing prohibition. Switzerland marches to the beat of a different drummer. U.S. policymakers call Swiss policy a disaster. But Swiss policymakers have results. Ours have beliefs. Three of our key beliefs are:

Belief #1: Drug-crazed addicts commit crimes.
Belief #2: Soft drugs lead users to harder drugs.
Belief #3: More blacks are in prison for drugs because more blacks do drugs.

Let me take these three one at a time.

1: Drug-crazed addicts commit crimes.

We hear it frequently. We also hear that drug use has climbed 75% since 1992. Republicans hammered the Democrats with this statistic in the 2000 election. We also hear that violent crime is down sharply - down almost half since 1992, based on victimization surveys, not police reports. Does this strike you as odd? I thought drug use and violent crime went together.

Remember "Needle Park" in Zurich in the late 1980s, early 1990s. It was a term of derision we used for the area Zurich provided for drug addicts to inject in public. Needle Park was the proof for us Americans that relaxing drug laws doesn't work. We'd have put undercover agents in that park and cleaned it up.

The Swiss went the opposite direction. They tried an experiment. They provided not just a place to inject, but also sterile needles, even free heroin! It wasn't quite as crazy as it sounds. Each addict had to register with the city to get into the program. He/she had to be above a certain age, and must have tried and failed to get clean more than once. The program also required that the addict attends a number of counseling sessions and offered free treatment upon request.

The Swiss have voted for it twice in referendums, and it is now set to run through at least 2004. It's no longer an experiment. It's now called therapeutic heroin and has spread to over half of the Swiss states. I have a book here by two Swiss MDs. "Cost-Benefit Analysis of Heroin Maintenance Treatment." It's an analysis of about 300 addicts during the first year of the experiment in1995. Bottom line is that society saves money - about $30 US Dollars each day for each addict in the program.

Almost all that saving was in what they called "legal behavior." That is, they no longer had to steal to get cash to buy drugs on the illegal market. You are probably not aware that the street price of heroin is about $20,000 per ounce.

2: Soft drug use leads to harder drugs.

The Swiss think it is illegal soft drugs that lead to harder drugs, because a person selling illegal soft drugs also has connections to heroin. So they "separate the markets" the only way they can - they legalize soft drugs. Marijuana is legal, de facto, in the German speaking areas. The Swiss Parliament is now drafting legislation that would make it official throughout Switzerland. Then there will be a referendum, probably within 2 years, to let the people decide, the same way they decided for therapeutic heroin.

If you think that sounds radical, consider MDMA or Ecstasy, the so-called "Hug Drug." Swiss courts are treating it like marijuana, so those users - mostly young people - are not exposed to criminals. Floridians would think the Swiss courts have lost their collective mind. We "know" that Ecstasy kills! Or does it?

Maybe it's only ILLEGAL Ecstasy that kills? The official annual reports of European Union drug use indicate one death in 6.8 million doses of Ecstasy! That death rate is not as safe as marijuana, but I think it's almost as safe as alcohol. How come Ecstasy is dangerous in the U.S. but not in the EU? The Swiss believe that repressing a popular drug causes more social damage than it prevents. We learned that lesson during alcohol prohibition in the 1920s.

3: More black drug offenders are in prison because more blacks do drugs.

This is the key to the modern drug war, declared by Richard Nixon in 1971. One of Nixon's aides, John Ehrlichman, was interviewed in 1996 by the author of the book "Smoke and Mirrors." During that interview, Ehrlichman said, "Look, we understood we couldn't make it illegal to be young or poor or black in the United States, but we could criminalize their common pleasure. We understood that drugs were not the health problem we were making them out to be, but it was such a perfect issue for the Nixon White House that we couldn't resist it."

Now Florida sends 460 black male drug offenders to prison per million black males in the population, but only 23 whites per million. That's 21 times as many blacks as whites, relative to population. The average for all states is 13 times as many. This suggests that a lot more blacks than whites use drugs. Let's look at that.

According to the official U.S. government survey for the year 2000 - released in September - 6.4% of blacks, age 12+, used an illegal drug in the past 30 days. For whites, the figure is exactly the same, 6.4% , and if we look at just the age 12-17 group, the white figure is actually higher. So if you cast your net in the white community and pull in 100 people, 6 or 7 of them will be drug users. Same in the Black community: 6 or 7 users. But if you cast your net ONLY in the Black community . . .THAT is racial profiling.

You may be thinking, "Ah, but more dealers are black! We all know that, don't we? We see it on the evening news." I don't know that's true, but it would be no surprise. Men on the bottom rung of the social ladder tend to enter these unsavory businesses. Certainly true in the 1920s when Irish and Italian immigrants got into bootlegging. It took no expensive training and it paid real well. One reason New York City Mayor LaGuardia wanted Prohibition to end was that it was tarnishing the image of Italian-Americans. That seems laughable today, but Afro-Americans aren't laughing.

It is hypocritical - almost immoral - to blame others for our drug use, but U.S. anti-drug policy depends on it. Now, a little hypocrisy would be okay with me if it got the job done. But this is useless. How many blacks do you think we'll need to lock up to get white boys to stop snorting cocaine?

At my job as an engineer we used to say that a problem well defined is 90% solved. Nixon defined the problem as drug use. But that was just a pretext to repress young people, blacks, browns and poor white people. We need to back off and try to redefine what it is we are fighting. I'd define it as the dual problem of greed and addiction. If we could get rid of those two, most of the social damage would end. The federal government has never tried this.

The only effective way to defeat greed is to destroy the illegal market, and the only way to do that is to legalize everything. Now, I'm not talking about a free market. I'm talking about state liquor stores. First the illegal drugs, then tobacco, then alcohol. Let Congress define a new type of drug for the FDA to regulate for purity and labeling. Call them recreational drugs. No advertising allowed - not for drugs, not for alcohol, not for tobacco - and a state employee selling to a minor will lose his/her license. Price these drugs for maximum revenue to the state, but not high enough to sustain an illegal market. Use a small part of that revenue to offer treatment, treatment upon request, open-ended. It's okay to fall off the wagon, and if you prefer living like a wino in the gutter, that's your choice.

If you rob or steal, you'll be prosecuted. If you hurt someone, you'll be prosecuted. If you drive under the influence you'll be prosecuted, and if you resell these drugs, you'll be prosecuted. There won't be much reselling because there won't be much profit. When was the last time you saw someone selling liquor on the street? The transition won't be easy. But at least we'd have a chance for success. Thirty years of failure is enough for me.

You don't like my idea? You want to get serious about drugs? OK. The Bush administration wants to reduce the demand for drugs; so let's do that - REALLY. Put undercover agents in the offices of corporate America, in our colleges, universities, shopping malls, public gatherings. Run 'stings' to arrest EVERY user. Then, if the arrestee agrees to snitch on someone else, he can go to treatment; otherwise he goes to prison. Then arrest the person he snitched on and offer him/her the same deal and so on and so on. Do those things for a few years, and you'll begin to like the idea of state liquor stores.

Some people don't see that the drug war is just a rerun of the alcohol prohibition of the 1920s. Let me read you part of the resolution passed by WONPR (Women's Organization for National Prohibition Reform) in 1930:

"We are convinced that National Prohibition, wrong in principle, has been equally disastrous in consequences in the hypocrisy, the corruption, the tragic loss of life and the appalling increase in crime which have attended the abortive attempt to enforce it; in the shocking effect it has had upon the youth of the nation; in the impairment of constitutional guarantees of individual rights; in the weakening of the sense of solidarity between the citizen and the government, which is the only sure basis of a country's strength."

Thanks for listening. Any questions? Any stones to throw?

Tom Hereford - Missouri

Prison 101

SOA Watch 2009

SOA Watch 2008

Prison 101 is a short film by Tom HerefordIf you have your own website, or blog please help us give this film short on You Tube publicity! Thanks.

Stop the Repression!By Father Tom Hereford, November Coalition

The School of the Americas Watch (SOAW) held its annual Memorial, Prayer Vigil and Peace Rally November 21-23, 2008. Fr. Roy Bourgeois and a few others started SOAW in 1990, while trying to stop the US training of military and law enforcement from Latin America in "counter-insurgency' techniques. These School of the Americas 'graduates' would then return home and use this training to intimidate, torture and kill the people of their home countries. Fr. Roy Bourgeois and his allies were prophets "speaking truth to power" in the tradition of Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King and Oscar Romero.

In his last broadcasted Sunday Sermon before being assassinated in El Salvador, Archbishop Oscar Romero, becoming more passionate as he spoke, said: "I would like to make a special appeal to the men of the army, and specifically to the ranks of the National Guard, the police and the military. Brothers, you come from our own people. You are killing your own brother peasants when any human order to kill must be subordinate to the law of God, which says, 'Thou shalt not kill.' No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. No one has to obey an immoral law... In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cries rise to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you in the name of God: stop the repression!"

When I remember Oscar Romero's words, I cannot help but think of the millions of our brothers and sisters held in prisons in this country. The Archbishop knew he was speaking to people with goodness in their hearts, which is one reason he was so frustrated.

I wonder, wouldn't the Archbishop's words be the same to the people of today's "justice" system? To those who have gradually created a system that cages and crushes so many? Wouldn't he say too: "In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cries rise to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you in the name of God: stop the repression!"

Fr. Tom Hereford has been a stalwart November Coalition volunteer for many years. He served as a federal Bureau of Prisons chaplain for over 10 years, primarily at FCI Coleman, FL, and presently resides in St. Louis, MO. As a member of the Catholic Worker Movement, he focuses on poverty, imprisonment and homelessness issues in his community. Fr. Hereford is also a member of Amnesty International, the ACLU, and the Catholic Peace Fellowship. You can contact Tom Hereford by email.

Check out SOAWatch, visit www.soaw.orgFor more on the drug war in Latin America, visit The Narco News BulletinFather Carl Kabot, Father Tom Hereford, and Jack Hereford (Tom's dad). Fr. Kabot served over 18 years in federal prison for his non-violent resistance to nuclear weapons proliferation.

Father Carl Kabot and Father Tom Hereford at the November Coalition booth

November Coalition At School Of Americas Vigil And Rally

By Fr. Tom Hereford, November Coalition volunteer

What, you don't know about The School of Americas (SOA)? Well, here's an online history:

"The School of the Americas (SOA), in 2001 renamed the "Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation," is a combat training school for Latin American soldiers, located at Fort Benning, Georgia.

"Initially established in Panama in 1946, it was kicked out of that country in 1984 under the terms of the Panama Canal Treaty. Former Panamanian President, Jorge Illueca, stated that the School of the Americas was the "biggest base for destabilization in Latin America." The SOA, frequently dubbed the "School of Assassins," has left a trail of blood and suffering in every country where its graduates have returned.

"Over its 59 years, the SOA has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers in counterinsurgency techniques, sniper training, commando and psychological warfare, military intelligence and interrogation tactics. These graduates have consistently used their skills to wage a war against their own people. Among those targeted by SOA graduates are educators, union organizers, religious workers, student leaders, and others who work for the rights of the poor. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been tortured, raped, assassinated, "disappeared," massacred, and forced into refugee status by those trained at the School of Assassins." (Source: SOA.org)

Since the School was expelled from Panama and found a home in Columbus, GA, USA, public records confirm growing protests demanding it be closed. This year, November 17-19, 2006, 22,000 people gathered outside the gates of the SOA to hold a protest and memorial vigil for the thousands of victims of graduates of the School. It was a weekend filled with information, solidarity and prayer.

On Friday afternoon a workshop was held entitled "Prison Reform: Fixing the Criminal Justice System." Attorney Jessica Hoskins (my sister) and I led the workshop. Jess worked for 10 years as a Missouri Public Defender before going into private practice. I worked for 10 years as a Chaplain in Federal Prisons. Seventy-five to 100 people attended the workshop, many knowing little about injustice in the "justice" system.

We began with definitions, realizing that everyone in prison is there because of the way we as a society define "criminal" and the way we define "justice." A well-received definition of crime supported by many was: "(n) word meaning the act of breaking the rules or ordinances imposed by the rich white men in power." The majority present agreed that standard definitions of crime used by the system couldn't fully represent the needs and desires of minorities, women and the poor -- customarily not included in system process.

This approach was supported by statistical graphs, personal stories and photos of some real people and their families who have suffered from the bias of the system, both federal and state.

The Public Defender system was established to help people below poverty lines (a single person with no dependents earning less than $9,570/year). I live in Missouri, where each PD is hired to handle 235 cases per year, but the actual caseload in 2004 was 339 cases per year per attorney. This means, in practice, that a case must be closed in less than six hours' work.

In Friday's workshop Jess revealed that, in Missouri, Public Defenders are first hired at $33,792/year, with a top earning potential of $52,452/year. A State Prosecutor starts at $40-55,000/year and can earn as much as $140,000/year. Because of high caseload and low salary, most PDs are new attorneys who may only spend a few years in the office before moving on, thereby creating a low level of experience available to many needy defendants. The Prosecutor's office is more attractive from a salary and caseload perspective, and more advantageous for someone wanting a political career.

To illustrate systemic problems, Jess told workshop participants the true story of two different people who were, from the court's perspective, in the same situation. Jim and Jason had each been stopped for vehicular speeding. Each had an outstanding warrant due to a bad check. Each was arrested and taken to jail, but that is where similarities end.

Jim is a person of means; Jason is poor. And so Jim has means to post bond and get out of jail within hours, but Jason cannot. Jim does post bond, gets out of jail and deals with the issues monetarily, ending up with no speeding record. He fixed the check, got placed on probation and his record was to be erased after successful completion of probationary period -- and he'll have no points on his driver's license because speeding was changed to noisy exhaust.

Meanwhile, Jason sits in jail. Unable to post bond, he waits to learn his court date. He does call a neighbor to get his kids and take care of them until he's out. But his court date is weeks away, and so Jason loses his job, gets behind on his rent, his utilities are cut off AND he is racking up a boarding bill at the jail (up to $34/day in Missouri).

Jason calls from jail about the speeding ticket and asks the court for an extension, which is granted, and a notice of the new court date is mailed to Jason's home. He doesn't get the notice, misses the second court date and another warrant is issued. Also, because Jason is unavailable to care for his children, the Division of Family Services (DFS) picks up his children from the neighbor caring for them and then places them in foster care. After arrest, his car was towed to an impound yard, where it begins accumulating daily fees.

When he at la

st faces the judge, Jason has racked up a $2700 boarding bill at the jail, been evicted from his apartment, lost his children and lost his job. The impounding bill now exceeds his car's value, and so he abandons it to the towing company. Unable to pay off the check immediately, Jason must plead guilty to a felony, and is sentenced to five years of probation. With no job, no car, and no place to live, Jason can't seem to live up to the rules of probation (which include having a job and a stable residence) and eventually ends up in prison.

For Jim, the situation was an embarrassing inconvenience. For Jason, it was a turning point in his life from which he may never recover. Throughout our country today, judges are each day dispensing justice in the same basic way: jail or not depends on whom you are if you're caught. To enliven the judiciary we think there must be increased options for Restorative or Rehabilitative Justice in a US criminal justice system currently stuck with models of Retributive Justice only.

Jess and I closed the workshop with Steps You Can Take -- a few ideas and examples accessible from relevant Internet websites:

o Educate others outside your friendly circle of common understanding: don't just "preach to the choir." Figure out how to talk with people who may not know or agree with you easily -- for example, members of an Elks or Moose Lodge, Women's Guild, Student Groups, Republican Women's Club, Church Groups, Chamber of Commerce.

o Lobby for Big Changes: learn how at www.november.org (drug law reform), www.cuadp.org (end the death penalty), www.fedcure.org (bring back federal parole), www.restorativejustice.org (healing, not cycles of revenge and despair), www.stopmax.org (stop the use of super max and solitary confinement)

o Lobby for Small Changes: NO jail time for traffic offenses, NO jail time for simple drug possession (80% of drug arrests are simple possession), NO 3-Strikes laws (these are people's lives, not a ballgame)o Restore Voting Rights: OR never take them away. Count urban prisoners as residing at their home or release address, not as residents of the rural area where many are imprisoned, current practice causing under-representation of the poor generally, and people of color in particular.

o PRAY: Add prisoners to the prayers of the faithful, to prayer chains and lists. Pause in thought or pray for prisoners in whatever spiritual and religious group to which you belong.

"Remember those in prison as if you were in prison with them" (Hebrews 13:3)

To review some past member projects, an archive of projects from 2004 - 2009, visit Local Scenes in the old November website.